Three years in bloody fucking hell

I grew to dread the sound. My roommate would take the Dixie cup off his dresser and walk to the bathroom. With the door open, he would dip the cup into the toilet and drink from it.

Welcome to my world. Three years of f’ing hell , as a locked in patient at a long term psychiatric facility.

Think of your life today. Some laughter, some intelligent conversation, maybe a hug or two, a bit of reading perhaps, a tennis match, of course no violence.

That wasn’t my life.

I love to laugh, and make others laugh. For three years, that never happened. And actually, nothing happened. Nothing. I was a guy with an advanced college degree living with people who never made it past third grade. So life proceeded accordingly.

The sound I will always remember is the shuffling of feet. Zombies going to lunch, zombies going to program, zombies lining up for meds.

It was Night of the Living Dead.

A few of us had to live under the threat of violence. I was one of those terrified few. A horrible bully made my miserable life more miserable.

Were patients beaten by staff? Yes. A patient sitting next to me was savagely beaten at lunchtime for not turning over a piece of fruit.

And I did nothing to help him.

And that will always haunt me.

What bugged me the most? They were the worst pack of thieves imaginable.
My wife would send me money-it was gone by the morning. My sister brought me a large amount of delicious snacks. Gone by that EVENING.

Never saw my wife, never saw my son. My best friends-never. Others stepped in to visit and to care. And to this day, I take them out to breakfast every two weeks.

Should I have been there? Should have been somewhere. I threatened to harm my wife and son, and saw Satan every evening.

So now I’ve been out for two years. No more Satanic visions. No more threats to anyone. Feeling pretty good.